What's Your Opinion: Overall, what grade would you assign the second Obama administration for its efforts on occupational safety and health?

We were past the compliance/enforcement except on "as needed" cases. Obama tried to get rid of VPP and reduced resources to promote voluntary collaboration with OSHA personnel. There were good things happened to, but the negative attitude that the agency adopted towards industry in all areas of federation regulation set us back 10-20 years in getting employers and employees engaged proactively to reduce the risk and prevent injury, illness, and fatalities

Appearance is everything. Everyone is resenting big government right now, and nobody has respect for Obama. It's harder to persuade people at all levels that we need to do certain things because OSHA says so. That used to be the default argument that encouraged folks to follow requirements. Not any more.

Injuries are down, deaths are up. Iron fist compliance and making examples of violators still a primary tool of OSHA's; precisely the type of approach we've known for years has a negative impact when used on employees. It seems we took a pretty big step back over the last 8 years from a partnership to a dictatorship. That's frustrating for employers and employees. We built up a lot of trust in the 90s and 00s. It felt like industry and OSHA were actually on the same page. Even though our company is safe and we have a very good safety program, this strong-arm approach and unfortunate results are not lost on our employees. They can see how a lack of collaborative effort and growth hinders the very thing it means to protect. I'm an optimist and it's my hope that we can reclaim that balance we lost.

With OSHA's recent implementation of the Anti-Retaliation Rule, the government has essentially given an open door to drug and alcohol use in the workplace with their prohibition of mandatory post-accident testing. Their interpretation that "concluding that drug testing alone constitutes an "adverse employment action"; and that "employers must limit testing to situations in which employee drug use is likely to have contributed to the incident" is a joke! How is an employer supposed to know if drug use is likely to have contributed to the incident if we can't test the employee after an accident. OSHA is supposed to help employers make their workplaces safer and reduce accidents. Restricting drug testing will simply create a more hazardous workplace, not only for drug users, but for their unsuspecting co-workers.

Président Obama worked hard at updating gun laws in January to help schools and many other organizations to help prevent active shooters from getting guns from corporations selling those guns without proper background checks. Unfortunately, our lame duck Congress has not passed anything of importance in over two years. It's unfortunate, but a fact of life that we will continue to deal with mass tragedy just because Congress does not want to act against their lobbyist for guns. As a gun owner, it's our responsibility to protect those rights, but not at the expense of making it easy for bad guys to gain access to them. We will continue the fight...

I agree with all the commenters on here so far. We have moved backwards away from the proactive initiatives by previous administrations. OSHA is the first to admit that the punitive approach to safety doesn't work telling us we can't do it to our own employees by telling us how to incentive them (or how not to), but their use of punitive measures amounts to the same thing. They set a double standard that keeps employers away from collaborating and engaging with OSHA to improve workplace safety. It's sad that the current administration has so little understanding on how their approach actually sets safety and health back 10 to 20 years. Thanks to their new anti-retaliation policy employers now have a choice, face a potential citation and fine by drug testing after an incident or face a potential catastrophic incident since you didn't drug test after an incident and that employee gets someone hurt. They've taken a very black and white issue for most of industry and colored it grey, leaving the door open for more injuries and more lawsuits. Thanks OSHA!

Agree with all the comments below. Injuries down, deaths up . . . . heard that illegal drug use is up too . . . any correlation? Then the employer get punished for doing drug tests post accident, sorry you got caught and weren't the cause of the accident, but why were you doing drugs in the first place? You may have gotten out of the way if you weren't impaired. Of course OSHA is punitive, why help out the employer? Some employees love that, "I'm going to call OSHA," if things don't go their way. Oh well I wonder why bullying is such a hot topic???? Last, but not least - we have to take the lowest bidder in order to win the contract. There has got to be a better way and more rewards for employers doing the right thing!

I definitely give the Obama administration an F for it's safety and health policies. Under Obama, OSHA is driving employers out of VPP. Specific example, my previous site was a VPP Star site since the 90's, the Region IV VPP chief overturned our VPP re-approval committee's recommendation to maintain our Star status. We had to fight tooth and nail to keep it. We were told that there was a specific push to lower the number of companies in the program . What kind of safety policy is that? Under this President, OSHA is strongly promoting enforcement over collaboration. This President's appointees clearly don't understand how to drive safety improvement. Driving a wedge between industry and OSHA is not the way to make the workplace safer.

I have had a great rapport with the OSHA team in my state for over 27 years. It is a shame that OSHA is mainly interested in the dollar to pay their expenses rather than the safety of the employees. As they say "there is a new sheriff in town."

Finally some movement on health standards particularly silica.

Why is this question only being asked of the 2nd Obama administration? Given the fact that Congress controls the purse strings, the same question should be asked of our most recent Congress. Unfortunately, "Safety" is not the first operational thought of the US Congress. As a result, For the last 20 years advancement on ANY regulatory measure -- particularly those which place any type "burden" on Business are DOA.

It seems that the administration had some good goals, but without the backing of Congress it was set up for failure.

Presidents do what Congress allows. We've had eight years of obstruction on everything and anything.

I think for as safety he has done a good job. if congress would work with him he would have done excellent job

The F grade I gave is because the administration has done little to truly change safety conditions on a national level. This has less to do with Obama and more to do with David Michaels lack of ability to produce results. Of course President Obama chose him and Michaels has served longer than any previous OSHA Director so I guess they should share in the less than amazing accomplishments.

The current administration is letting things slide by talking a big talk and delivering sub par results. If safety is truly important then why is the budget shrinking and other budgets growing? I do believe the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but noise is not enough when big money players go to the front of the line. It appears that legalizing the use of recreational drugs is not the route to go. It forces companies to be the police for maintaining a safe work environment when residual effects of use hinders the environment. We need to have better lines drawn for compliance and leave out the gray. Our regulations should be written to be more decisive and less subjective to those verifying compliance. The ones that write the policies should have a background in putting them into action. There is a serious disconnect on who writes the regulations and who lives in them. I believe in being proactive and planning the work and working the plan. As all in safety know so well, we plan for the worse and hope for the best! Money on the front end, prevents money on the backend!

why not people saying president is not responsable for safety here. Everybody complaining about that on same poll on Trump http://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/14992-whats-your-opinion-will-workers-be-safer-under-a-trump-administration